Page 62 of Sipping Seduction
“You want a beer or something?” Miller stood in front of the open refrigerator.
“At ten in the morning?” Hell, maybe a beer wasn’t such a bad idea. It might take the edge off or at least keep me from being a complete asshole to my brother.
He picked up a bottle and held it out to me. “No judgement, bro. I can get you a couple of ibuprofen instead. If you’d been willing to go to the hospital—”
“No hospital.” I’d spent enough of my life in hospital rooms.
Miller popped off the cap and set the beer down in front of me. “You ready to talk about it?”
I shook my head, then tilted the bottle back and gulped down the ice-cold brew. “I never should have come home.”
“Never’s a hell of a long time.” My brother filled a plastic cup from Pappy’s Last Call with water from the tap, then sat down next to me at the table. “Where do you think you’d be right now if you’d never come back to Beaver Bluff?”
The truth was, I had no idea. When I got injured, the only place I wanted to be was close to Frannie. I’d seen things so clearly then. She was the most important person in the world to me. While I lay in a hospital bed halfway around the world, fighting for my life, I’d cursed myself for leaving her in the first place. I would have given anything then to be able to hug her one more time. So I’d done what I had to do to get back to her. Only, things hadn’t worked out the way I’d imagined.
“I don’t know where I would have gone, but maybe it’s time to figure it out.” An Army buddy of mine had talked about a place out west in the mountains of Montana. Mustang Mountain, or something that had to do with horses. That’s where he’d planned to go when he was done with the service. Maybe I could reach out and ask him more about it.
“You aren’t serious, are you?” Miller’s gaze drilled into me.
“Why not? I can’t stick around here. Not with the way people were looking at me today.” I turned my head sideways and peered up at him. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to have the whole town think you’re a sorry sack of shit?”
“That’s not what they were thinking.” Miller shook his head. My little brother might try to downplay what happened out there today, but he hadn’t been the one sitting in the epicenter of the shitstorm.
“Of course, that’s what they were thinking. I’ve never been good enough. Not for this town, not for our family, and definitely not for Frannie.” I picked up the bottle and took another gulp of beer. It didn’t even taste good. The anger in my heart had ruined everything, even the taste of a perfectly good beer.
“No one feels like they’re good enough for our family.” The harsh laugh coming from Miller drew my attention. “Dad made sure of that.”
I stared at him, hating the fact that we had that feeling in common.
“I’m not trying to make excuses for Dad, but I’ve made peace with things. He had his reasons for pushing me, and I had my reasons for pushing back so hard. At least you did something with your life. Try being the youngest brother out of Vaughn, Cole, and you. The only thing I ever excelled at was fucking up.”
Miller had been a bit of a wildcard when he was younger. While I’d done everything I could to try to make my dad proud, Miller didn’t give a flying fuck. Back then, I’d envied him for being able to shuck his responsibilities and do his own thing. But when a woman he barely knew showed up with a baby she said belonged to him, he grew up overnight.
“You’re not a fuckup, bro. You’ve got an awesome kid, an amazing fiancée, and a successful career. Maybe you had a rocky start, but everything you went through back then made you into the man you are today.”
“Right.” He sat back in the chair and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “You ever think of listening to yourself?”
“It’s not the same.” He wasn’t going to be able to flip my words around and use them against me. I shifted my leg, wincing at the pain caused by the slight movement.
“It’s exactly the same.” Miller set his elbow on the table and raised his brows.
I shook my head, unwilling to acknowledge it. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be good enough.”
“And you are.”
“How do you figure?” I lifted my chin toward my useless leg. “Did you know the doctors wanted to cut it off when I first got hurt?”
It was a stupid question to ask because Miller had no way of knowing that tidbit of info. I hadn’t told anyone—so afraid to utter the words out loud on the off chance they’d come true.
“Why didn’t they?” Miller asked.
“Because I wouldn’t let them. I told them I’d do whatever they said if they promised to save my leg.”
“You think Frannie would love you any less if you were missing half your leg?” Miller scowled.
He still didn’t get it.
“No. I think she’d pour her heart and soul into taking care of me. That’s what she does, what she’s always done. She took care of her mom when she got sick. Now she takes care of her dad. I just wanted to be the one person who could take care of her.”
